Nine-year-old Derek Blankenship didn’t sleep well in the early hours of Monday morning.

He was dreaming that his home was on fire – a mobile home on Vance Drive, where he lived with his parents, three dogs, two cats, and pet rats and fish.

The dream was so realistic, he said, that he woke up.

That dream, and his keen nose, likely saved his family.

“I smelled the smoke and then I woke up and looked down to the left,” he said. “There was fire on the top of the door.”

He ran down the hall to the bedroom of his mom and stepfather.

“He came to our bedroom screaming,” said his mom, Misty Dunbar. “That fire started on the other side of the headboard from where he was sleeping. If he hadn’t done that he would’ve died and we probably would’ve died of smoke inhalation. He’s mama’s hero.”

Her husband, Charlie Dunbar, said he wished he was dreaming about the fire when Derek woke the couple up.

“It only took a split second and then it [what was happening] smacked me and I woke up,” he said.

Misty Dunbar said Derek grabbed the dog that sleeps in his room before he ran to warn them of the blaze. That dog, and the other dog that lives outside, survived the fire. The two cats were seen outside Monday, but a third dog and Derek’s pet rats and fish perished in the flames, Dunbar said.